


In the dark of your bedroom

by hoesthetic



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, M/M, Moving Out, Referenced Anxiety, Small Towns, Societal Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15250377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoesthetic/pseuds/hoesthetic
Summary: It’s not that he thinks it’s wrong—weird, maybe, but not wrong in the sense where he thinks he shouldn’t be doing this. It’s difficult to find such regret within him when Donghyuck feels so nice against him, warm, and scarily, a lot like coming home.





	In the dark of your bedroom

**Author's Note:**

> cw for mentions of drowning

The evening sky is dark, but not intimidatingly so. There’s a few stars twinkling but it’s not a mesmerizing sight, not a painted picture or blinding masterpiece that takes his breath away, no. But Mark thinks he likes it like that the best, a calm roof to bring some dimness to the summer that’s otherwise so bright and warm. Not that he dislikes bright or warm, because now talking about it, the boy pressed to his side is both of those things.

Donghyuck has his eyes towards the sea, pointing at something, and Mark turns his gaze to the direction just to focus it on his hand instead of the view. Then, thinking about it, that’s how it always has been and probably will continue to.

“Do you see that?” Donghyuck asks, his voice nasal but also quiet, a lulling sound, or maybe not. Maybe, or possibly, most likely, it’s the sound of the ocean making the tune, the calm waves like a lullaby. It’s too late. His brain is coming up with the weirdest things, his stomach tight, like both dread and butterflies, and something he can’t wrap his head around—a feeling he cannot quite pinpoint.

“See what?” Mark asks and finally looks to the horisont, his eyes squinting when the dark blue doesn’t show him anything new. Donghyuck lets out a breathy laugh, shakes his head and drops his head to his lap, and then Mark’s gaze follows. The sand is light beige, soft and tickling against the bare of his soles.

Despite it being a calm night, the breeze barely here, there’s something like discomfort on his skin. The feeling in the bottom of his stomach. Fear of the unknown in the sense where that unknown is not a thing. That’s the only way he can put it—it’s for no reason, which is troubling itself.

“Nothing, nothing,” Donghyuck hums softly. It’s sort of odd but Mark doesn’t point it out. Why should he?

Mark digs his palms into the sand, pulls them out and tries to be subtle as he moves the hand between their bodies closer to Donghyuck, and when he finds his hand, intertwining their fingers. The other one lets out a bubbly laugh. Mark smiles to himself.

Donghyuck’s palm is warm against him, a bit sweaty, and he wonders if he is nervous or whether that’s just because of the weather. It’s not that hot, not when Mark is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and is comfortable enough. Holding his hand like this, it’s making him both warm and happy, but there’s no light without a shadow.

It’s what they do, in the dark. Mark isn’t sure how he feels about it. Holding a body close to him in his own bed, with an extra mattress on the floor for Donghyuck, only when the lights have been turned off and the house has gone quiet. When the stars are up on the sky and the only sound are the crickets, because in their town, everybody is silent at three am. So are they, shy lips pressed against each other, and Mark really doesn’t know what it means.

This, too. Sitting on one of the many beaches of their island, away from their houses, away from everyone just to make sure no one will see. Mark doesn’t know what he fears, exactly.

It’s not that he thinks it’s wrong—weird, maybe, but not wrong in the sense where he thinks he shouldn’t be doing this. It’s difficult to find such regret within him when Donghyuck feels so nice against him, warm, and scarily, a lot like coming home.

“Donghyuck?” Mark asks, softly, so it’s almost a whisper. He turns his head to him.

If he had something to say in the first place, Mark forgets it. Donghyuck is very close like this, looking at him, his eyes, then his lips, and Mark can say that it’s not really him to blame when he leans in, because Donghyuck is, simply put, irresistible.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

Mark doesn’t see himself as someone who would believe in soulmates but despite that, it’s always been Mark and Donghyuck. It’s always been the two of them, not against the world because the other kids in their town have never been hostile towards them, or their parents, or anyone in general. (Bitterly, Mark thinks that they would if they just _knew._ )

It’s always been _where’s Donghyuck?_ if he shows up somewhere alone. It’s always been _invite Donghyuck to our barbecue too,_ it’s always been _Mark, sweetie, you haven’t visited in a while._ It’s always been how Donghyuck is a flickering LED-light and Mark is a light hungry fly.

That’s why it’s terrifying to leave.

There’s a few options. Either Mark stays and takes a year out, gets a job for the year and then, moves out with Donghyuck. Another option is that he stays and just doesn’t leave, works as a fisher like his dad—like his dad wants him to. Third option is that he leaves, goes to college to a bigger city nearby, and Donghyuck will follow a year after if he wants to.

Mark doesn’t want to stay. Their small island is a place he treasures yet despises.

Sitting on the dark brown leather couch of his living room, staring at the wall covered in family photos and a few idyllic paintings, he nibbles on his lower lip. Mark doesn’t like to get negative but it’s a suffocating place to be in, especially when there’s something about you that isn’t just right.

It’s a lot like he feels about his faith too, but that’s another story for another time, for another night when he spells out the worries on his heart with hushed whispers and Donghyuck runs his fingers through Mark’s hair carefully, cradling.

It’s worse for Donghyuck though. Even if it has never been the two of them against the world, Mark knows that he latches onto him like a stubborn leech. Donghyuck hates the town more than he does.

Mark wants to leave, preferably as soon as possible, but he doesn’t want to leave Donghyuck. This is the problem.

His mother walks into the living room, giving him an odd glance. Mark looks at her with an awkward smile. _Sorry for staring at the wall, for spacing out, for being weird, for disappointing you, probably._ He doesn’t say any of these things aloud.

“Shouldn’t you be packing your things? If you don’t start doing it soon, you’ll have to rush and then you’ll forget something, and your dad and I just don’t have the time to come and bring you something necessary you left here just because you didn’t bother to start packing early enough,” she nags, monotone, bored-sounding.

There’s a few options but Mark has made up his mind, selfishly enough. He nods with a sigh.

“Yes, mom, I should,” he says, tiredly. Her gaze softens but she doesn’t say anything else. She has never been good at comfort.

 

There’s a pile of brown cardboard boxes in front of his room. He looks at them with his heart heavy. Mark wishes Donghyuck were there. That’s nothing new.

There’s still a month before he has to leave. The college campus seemed nice enough from visiting it last spring so it’s not the problem. The problem is something else. Like being alone. Like the obvious things, like Donghyuck, like whatever, and his chest feels tight and Mark kind of wants to cry. He sits down on his bedroom floor.

The room reminds him of the taste of Donghyuck’s mouth and his soft hands, the way he smells and the pleased hum from the back of his throat. It reminds him of sitting on the bed next to him and playing on his Game Boy. It reminds him of exam seasons and sitting in silence. It reminds him of every single thing, revolving around Donghyuck or not, and Mark wants to escape, and he also doesn’t.

The thing is, Mark never knows what he fucking wants. He wants Donghyuck, but he knows he shouldn’t. It upsets him. He doesn’t understand these things, and why does his heartbeat pick up when it’s about the younger boy, when the both of them are boys. He knows what it means but he doesn’t understand it like he wants to.

And when sitting in the church on a Sunday morning and the priest says something that goes past him, and Mark thinks about Donghyuck when the light falls inside through the coloured glass windows, he feels guilty and he feels everything. Mark feels so much.

He lets out a choked noise, pressing his palms against his eyes.

 

That night, before falling asleep, Mark thinks of him. The silence is maddening and every bone in his body feels restless. Maybe if they were the same age, things would be easier. They could leave together, be selfish and trying to prioritize themselves. The world is unknown and vast. And the unsettling fact that Mark doesn’t know who he will be in a few months despite knowing where he will be, and how his friendship—or whatever—will be with Donghyuck.

A seagull screeches outside.

In another universe, Mark stays, marries the nice girl from next door, settles for fishing, sheer scales on his hands, and then, in future, they’ll have a few children and Mark is happy. Pleased with a dog and a white fence, peace in his soul, a good church goer but not a moralizing one.

In this universe, Mark loves someone. That’s about it. Everything else is open, unknown, wavering, very much like the ocean.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

Will they ever be truly happy like this? Mark doesn’t know. Mark avoids thinking about it, then, and busies himself with packing things into cardboard boxes.

Donghyuck and him don’t see each other as much anymore, although they do still hang out. It’s not a one sided thing, not Mark avoiding Donghyuck or Donghyuck avoiding Mark. He knows the both of them are trying to create some distance between them. Easing into it slowly. It’s just one year and they can call each other from time to time, and they will see during holidays, but it’s not the same. Mark cannot talk about this to anyone. Even if they have been a buy one, get two-deal forever, they’re just friends after all.

Mark is folding his winter clothes into a box when his mom calls him from downstairs.

“Mark! Donghyuck is here,” it’s somewhat muffled through the walls. Something nervous twists in his stomach and he gets up. He hates how jittery he has been around him lately.

“Tell him to come here!” Mark yells back, picking up things on the floor to tidy up a bit. It’s not like the other one hasn’t seen his room in a worse shape but Mark doesn’t want him to fall over on his books or something.

Soon enough there’s a knock on the door and it’s slowly opened, Donghyuck peeking his head in. His dark hair is tousled, dressed in a red shirt and jean shorts.

“Hey,” he greets him, walking closer after closing the door behind him. It hits Mark like crashing waves, he wants to kiss him so bad. It’s too early, too bright, and Donghyuck looks too defined and too real in the daylight. It’s too real, tangible, not a fuzzy dream of nightime.

“Hi,” Mark coughs back, clutching the old book in his hands he had just picked up, “Sorry about the mess.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes and gives him a grin, flopping down onto Mark’s bed.

“It’s cool,” he says and gives him a thumbs up. Mark doesn’t say anything, just puts the book to a pile of things in the corner of his room.

A part of Mark doesn’t want to look at him but he does, still, and maybe it says something because Donghyuck tilts his head. There’s something like worry in his eyes. He has heard it before from him, how easy Mark is to read, and this instance probably isn’t anything different.

“What’s wrong?” is the question Donghyuck asks. Mark responds with a sigh before realizing that with a reaction like that he can’t say that nothing is wrong. It’d be an obvious lie and he knows how much Donghyuck despises lies.  

Mark walks next to the bed and sits beside him, quiet.

“You don’t have to tell me, you know,” Donghyuck says. Mark knows that he doesn’t mean it. He knows he wants to know but doesn’t want to be a nuisance. He knows these things. Donghyuck doesn’t care about being a nuisance, a bother, when it comes to being loud or obnoxious, putting on a show, but when it’s fragile things, like emotions, he tiptoes around.

Mark thinks this is why Donghyuck doesn’t belong here. The town is far too quiet, close minded, for personalities like him. If it suffocates Mark, who is a lot more calmer than him, awkward and perhaps a bit odd, but reserved with a lot of things, it must be a choking hold on Donghyuck.

“I just,” Mark swallows, “I’m nervous. About everything, I think.”

“Like, moving and college?”

“Yeah. And other things too, like… like leaving you. I don’t want to,” Mark’s getting a bit choked up, looking at the wall instead of Donghyuck, letting out a forced cough. It’s the first time he has said it aloud. He doesn’t want to leave him.

“Mark…”

“I don’t wanna go and leave you behind, even if it’s just for one year. I’m scared, Donghyuck, I know you hate it here.”

Donghyuck is quiet for a second before putting his hand around Mark’s shoulders and pulling him closer to him. It could pass off as something brotherly or platonic if not for the quickening of his heartbeat.

“Listen up, dumbass,” Donghyuck says but it’s awfully gentle, close to him with quiet words, “It sucks, it really does. I don’t wanna stay here while you fuck off, but I’m not blaming you. I don’t want you to stay here because of me, you fool, it wouldn’t be fair. You gotta think of yourself over me, okay?”

Mark lets out a breathy laugh.

“It still fucking… I don’t know. It sucks,” he mumbles. Donghyuck nods in agreement.

They sit in silence like that for a while, Mark leaning against Donghyuck with his arm wrapped around him. While his words were probably genuine, Mark worries that he is trying to be strong, playing it cool. Donghyuck doesn’t like to be fragile, but neither does he.

“What are we?” Donghyuck blurts out suddenly. It makes his body run cold. A question he has feared hearing, even if it’s inevitable, unless Mark wants to pretend until the end. Whenever that end might be.

“I don’t know,” he says, truthfully yet unsure.

“Are you gay?” Donghyuck asks straightforwardly, looking at him with eyes determined. Mark almost flinches, almost shushes him. It sounds like a curse word.

“Say it a bit louder, will you?” Mark says, trying to come off as harsh but it’s mostly weak, his heart beating uncomfortably. Donghyuck looks… he can’t really say. Sad? Disappointed? But he hasn’t taken his arm from around his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, if not a bit sourly, “but are you?”

“I—I don’t know,” Mark stumbles over his words. He knows what it means. He knows that the thing it means isn’t really acceptable to most despite how he personally doesn’t see anything inherently wrong about it. But he doesn’t know if it applies to him, because it’s always been Donghyuck. Donghyuck is special to him.

“I am,” Donghyuck says.

“I love you,” is Mark’s response, hurried, blurted out like an accident. Knocking over a glass of milk, spilling over the edge onto the floor, just to realize it after it has happened and the damage has been done. Donghyuck’s eyes are round.  

“What do you mean by that?” Donghyuck asks. Mark doesn’t want to put all of his feelings on the milk stained table, but if the damage has been indeed done already… He parts his lips. Mark shuffles on the bed so he is sitting with facing Donghyuck, his arm slipping from around him.

“You know what it means,” Mark mumbles.

“Like a brother?”

He shakes his head. Donghyuck looks at him and Mark wonders if he really sees him for what he is, and not an invisible, ordinary person in the small mass of their town. If Donghyuck sees him as an individual, no matter if there’s nothing extraordinarily special about him. He wants him to see him like that.

“Like… like a lover?” Donghyuck whispers it. It’s way too bright.

“I guess,” it’s lame and not heartfelt at all, but Mark can’t say for sure because still, the truth is that he doesn’t know. The truth is that he is scared.

Donghyuck smiles at him, so beautifully if not a little bit sad. Mark should be packing, putting away things, deciding what belongs to childhood and what to future, but there he is, sitting on his bed and trying not to cry when a smile is tugging on the corners of his lips.

He decides he doesn’t need to hear it back from Donghyuck because he knows. He really does. He thinks.

 

 

Donghyuck ends up staying over. His parents don’t think anything of it. The mattress is on the floor again, the pillow and blanket untouched for now that they’re squeezed against each other on Mark’s bed. In a few weeks, he’ll leave, but he doesn’t think about it now.

Donghyuck’s breath is warm against the corner of his mouth. He isn’t sure who leans in first. There’s a hand holding his cheek gently, soft lips moving against his, shuddering breath through his nose. It’s definitely not ideal, to hold the boy he adores only in the dark, but Mark will take what he can get.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

They’re sitting on a dock at the hammock. The sailboats are arranged to neat rows, and the colour scheme of white, blue, brown, it’s more nostalgic than anything else. These people, the men and women owning these boats, Mark wonders whether they’re pleased with their lives or if they crave for something more.

Mark swings his feet over the edge, shoeless, the water very blue beneath his soles, even with some metres between his feet and the waves. Donghyuck is humming a song Mark vaguely recognizes but can’t remember the name or lyrics of.

There’s one week left.

It’s a quiet afternoon. The hottest season has ended already, Mark is pretty sure, but it’s still very warm. The wind is blowing softly, messing with his strands. There’s a distance between Donghyuck and him. Both physical and metaphorical, even after the weird confessions.

“I want ice cream,” Donghyuck says suddenly, stopping with his tune.

“Me too,” Mark says, furrowing his brows. Neither of them make a move to leave. Mark keeps swinging his feet.

He looks around just to see that there isn’t many people around. He still wouldn’t risk it to do anything affectionate with Donghyuck, no, but with some weird impulse, Mark pulls his shirt off and pushes himself over the edge to the water.

  


(He wonders if falling in love feels like drowning. Not that he has any experience of drowning, having always been a good swimmer. But the overwhelming feeling of sinking, then something in his throat and swallowing gulps of salt water. While it burns there’s something homely about it.

They say love is like coming home. Donghyuck feels like home but so does the smell of salt and harsh ocean wind.

Mark wonders if falling in love feels like diving deep into the deep water on purpose. If it feels like the rocks and sand of the bottom, walking with holding his breath, eyes narrowed so the water doesn’t hurt them too much, but never closed.)

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

The weather forecast had said that it Maybe it would have been easier to leave if he didn’t show up but there’s no point in what ifs.

“Is that all?” Donghyuck asks him after putting another box on top of another in the trunk. Mark furrows his brows before nodding slowly.

“I think so? I’ll go check,” he says, turning around.

“I’ll come with you,” Donghyuck says quickly, and honestly, Mark isn’t all too surprised.

They walk across his house, no boxes on the hallways, to Mark’s room. It’s pretty much empty, which makes his heart clench. It’s awfully odd to see it like that. There isn’t anything to take to the car either but Donghyuck closes the door behind him.

It’s easy to connect the ends and understand that Donghyuck wants to say his goodbyes in private. In the whiteness, the room seems to swim in sunlight. Mark swallows, looking at the other one with something heavy on his heart again. He doesn’t want to grow up. He would so much rather just stay there and pretend everything is fine, eating overly sweet popsicles and falling over on the asphalt, scratching his knee. Even if he doesn’t really want to be there. He doesn’t want to go and leave Donghyuck. He doesn’t want this. It’s troubling, he has never been good at making decisions.

Mark feels like he is underwater. Donghyuck looks like he wants to say something, hesitant, not as bright, shining, as usual. It’s not a good look. Mark wants to see him happy, glowing. He wets his lips.

Donghyuck is dressed in a white t-shirt with navy blue stripes on it. Like waves, like the same, overpowering waves, Mark feels like kissing him again. He hasn’t kissed him in the daylight still. Only during the night, when reality isn’t really real.

Mark takes in a shuddering breath and steps closer. He takes Donghyuck’s hands into his, keeping his stare at them. The contrast of their hands is nothing major. Donghyuck is more tanned than him, not by a lot but it’s a noticeable difference. His hands seem softer than Mark’s, too. There isn’t any meaning to this. For a second he doubts if there’s any meaning for any of this at all, and it’s just coincidence.

He doesn’t know what to say.

Leaving his home behind. Donghyuck pulls him closer, forcing Mark to let go of his hands when he hugs him. He hugs him tightly, like he never wants to let go. Mark hopes Donghyuck wouldn’t.

It’s just a year but even a year is a very long time, sensitive to change, especially when he is leaving to a place where everything is unknown and new, like a new start.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, his voice muffled and oddly strangled, “we are just friends.”

Mark squeezes his eyes shut. His mom is yelling his name from the downstairs again, that they need to leave now.

“Yeah,” Mark whispers, “we are.”  

 

 

 

 

( _I should have kissed you._ Mark looks out of the car window, the view changing from familiar to unfamiliar, to things he can’t recall ever seeing, even if he has on journeys previous to this. There’s scratches and dirt on the window.

“I’m gay,” Mark blurts out, his dad next to him, his hands on the steering wheel. He lets out a forced laugh.

“Don’t joke around with things like that, son,” he says. Mark watches the trees, how they modify into a dark green mass instead of individual beings. If you even can call a tree a being.

He feels like apologizing, like saying _I am so sorry,_ even though he isn’t sure what he did wrong. It’s not necessarily a new sensation, but he doesn’t want to get used to it. Mark closes his eyes, it’s not darkness he sees, but something golden brown. It’s the sunshine.

If falling in love is like drowning, Mark is a fool for going skinny dipping when he doesn’t know how to swim, or something like that. If falling in love is like swimming in the bottom of the ocean, Mark is an idiot for craving the feeling of water against his skin and diving deep.

Mark feels like underwater, but floating, his face pressed to the wet while something keeps holding him up. He doesn’t know why or what for.

 _I’m not joking,_ he wants to say, now that his eyes are shut. He doesn’t, and instead he settles for lacing his own fingers between one another and holds his breath.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> IDONT KNOW WHAT THIS IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im sorry if u read it. please leave a comment and/or kudos if u enjoyed & save my day ~


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